Hold that Thought: Build clarity, peace, and joy by gaining mastery over your thinking

by Chana Mason

Do you struggle with frustration, anxiety, or anger? Good These emotions are caused by passing thoughts. Great You are not your thoughts. Fantastic You can learn how to effectively question your thoughts and free your mind.This fun-to-read book is packed with tools to help the thoughts that cause distress. Recognize negative patterns. Understand how your thoughts impact you. Learn lessons from every thought you have. Cultivate clarity, peace, and compassion.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ebooks, Self Help, Health, Psychology, Personal Development

250 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 20, 2019

Reviews

[Cosmic Arcata · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very helpful for working through anger and self defeating behavior. I read it once and will read it again. In just this one reading I was able to take my journaling pages further by asking myself the same sort of questions. I didn't just follow her protocol but kept asking the questions as they came to me and answered them. I really found this book helpful!!!

[Lola]

I ended up DNF'ing this one around 30% or so. I like the idea of this book and the concept of realizing what our thoughts are or where our frustrations come from, but I feel that the solutions are almost a bit too simple. The examples don't go past the realization of the thought that need to be changed, but I feel like there was very little advice on how to achieve that thought change once you identified the problem. I also would've liked to see more of what happens next, so how will your behavior and that of others change and whether this was actually helpful. I liked the first few chapters, but it started to feel a bit repetitive after that and with everything going on at the moment I just lost interest in this one. I might pick it up again later, we'll see.

[Mary-Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved it!! So many little life nuggets. Makes you really think about your own thoughts and the negative narratives you form in your head

[Christine Dye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome!

These are life changing ideas that she describes in an easy to understand way. I have read the entire book and an still turning back to it.

[Andy Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am grateful that I finished this book. It challenged my thinking and I will return to the ideas outlined over and over again.

Through a long series of conversations, we listen in on a wide variety of therapy sessions.

Here is a summary of the Inquiry process:

The Rant
The Survey
The Thought Bank
The ATM (And That Means)
Tower of Babble
Just Desserts
The Obstacle Course
Should [the most controversial section]
Fishing for Trouble (fair, justified, reasonable, enough, deserve)
Monsters Under the Bed (what are you afraid would happen...)
Caught Up in Dramatics
Double Bind Study (based upon our Blueprint)
Dead Weight (neuro-linguistic programming / life mapping: generalizations, distortion, deletion)
Anatomy of Feedback (recognizing your unique reactions to truth and falsehood)
Anatomy of Falsehood
Anatomy of Truth
Experience Buffet
The Time Machine
No Business Like Your Business (Covey's Circle of Influence > Circle of Concern)
The Courtroom (unhealthy self-judgment after leaving your business)
Addiction Loops and Aggression Tailspins (false beliefs, painful emotions)
The Little Green Troll (creatively personify an unhealthy thought that you can't yet give up)
Lessons from Your Opponent
Turnarounds (used here and in many previous steps)
Action Superhero + Tower of Benefit

The author offers free downloads to support each of these Inquiries:
Hold.ChanaMason.com/bonus

[Summer Hurst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to like it

I only got through the first several chapters when I saw many problems
First one is depending on themselves not to let thoughts or feelings bother them, this breaks down every thought should be taken captive in Messiah then we can pray about the situation, repent or simply respond better but soing it ourselves fails
Almost more so, there are universal truths in the universe designed by a Creator so sometimes we should be discomforted by an event or thought. Universally rape, murder (true murder not self or others defense), and even death are wrong, killing yourself would never be right ultimately. Thus we should be sad and even enraged when it happens then the question is what do we do with it.
Yes there are lies we tend to believe of ourselves or others and those should be worked out but some of the early examples were so basic as to be boring. Of course you are always to be responsible on your reaction and not meddle that does not change any other universal truth
I will likely read the rest in more detail at some point but this had to be said

[Susan Zien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was fortunate enough to supplement reading this book with an in-person seminar about the formula which helped me plug in several challenging issues resulting in successful awareness. Being aware of the true cause of my negative feelings caused the negativity to diminish and in some cases to disappear altogether. The reason I gave the book four stars rather than five is that, at least in my situation, I felt that there were some issues I needed the author's personal help with, such that the book became a supplementary, rather than a primary tool.

The author truly wants everyone to benefit from the formula and provides the opportunity to get the ebook version for free, either from her website or from Amazon. I've had one Zoom session with the author and she was able to get to the bottom of my issue in one session which changed my life drastically for the better.

[A.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished this ages ago and sat on the review for a while.
It’s hard to explain, but it feels really Israeli - like this bit.

Chana: Tell me, since you arrived in Jerusalem last month, how many people have been stabbed?
Sandy: I don’t know for sure. Maybe twelve.
Chana: That’s a pretty good guess. There have been three stabbings, actually. And tell me, how many stabbings have you replayed in your mind?
Sandy: Soooo many. Every time I walk in the Old City and see an Arab, I picture them pulling out a knife and am on the lookout. Or if I read about a stabbing in the news, I picture it over and over in my head. It freaks me out. (p. 74).

I get this is her client, and I get this is a session… but, yikes.

2 stars

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not good. Not good. This is one of those books that features imagined dialogues that 'perform' the point of the argument.

I prefer making the argument.

The point made in this book is straight forward. It probes the relationship between thinking and feeling.

But this dynamic relationship is disturbed by the way in which the book is organized. I do not want to read page after page after page of dialogues between 'Chana' and 'Heather', or 'Chana' and 'Karla.'

[Ok Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an alright book, there are times where it becomes repetitive where it leads me to lose some interest in this book despite that it's rather fascinating. It taught me many lessons even school don't teach us hence why I believe that self-help books/psychology books are beneficial to our everyday life. I'm not sure if it's a book I would recommend to people.

[Terra Fletcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad I stuck with this book. At first, I didn't think it would apply to me and it took me a bit to get into it. But then I found a few things that did apply to me. And those nuggets alone were worth the time investment. But even better, it helped me to understand how and why some people around me struggle. I will be gifting this book to a few people.

[Valen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The actual information was useful, but I'll be honest, the writing wasn't all too good. Dialogue was unnatural, and honestly could have done better as simple explanations instead of dialogue in the first place as it felt very fluffed up. 2/5 Stars - valuable information but bad writing itself.

[Scott Goddard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This WAS excruciating! I found myself in a perpetual cycle of repetitive dialogue, and the majority of scenarios were completely unrelatable. I really had to dig deep to find the extra bit of determination to finish this. Not one I will be urging people to read, I can say that much!

[Judi Politte-Downs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different way to process of stresses and issues. Several steps but each one talks about rethinking the situation, going on the opposite direction. If I had a hard copy i would have been worrying notes and highlighting.

[Erlinda Attwater · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting ideas but to much repetition so boring and not for me.

[Joyce Simononis · Rating 2 out of 5]

think then act

A little catchy but sometimes repetitive. It was ok but hard to keep my interest. Give me a good 1-2book instead

[Tarvo Metspalu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A straight-to-the-point toolkit for overcoming self-limiting beliefs (thoughts) with plentiful real life concentrated example dialogues for each tool serving the Inquiry (or the Work) method.